Bloo

I think you should verify that you do not have any stuck wheel cylinder pistons. Good luck with the new drum and let us all know if it works out.

That is a good question. There is no good answer. There are many ways and many reasons a block can crack. The most common one is fairly easy to look for. In this scenario the car had no antifreeze in it and a cold snap came early, OR it did have antifreeze in it and it wasn't enough. Antifreeze was alcohol, and needed to be constantly replenished due to evaporation. The coolant froze. This breaks things all over the place, including some places you can't see, however a large portion of the damage is often on the outside where you can see it. Look all over the outside of the engine anywhere there is a water jacket. Not just on the block, but on the head too. If you are suspicious at all, and you have permission to, look under the pushrod cover. It hides the water jacket on one side. The damage comes because ice is physically bigger than water, so it pushes out with the force of nature and nothing can stop it. Cracks like this often show obvious signs of the outward push, leaving slight bulging spots in the iron, and making the cracks easier to see. If you find any core plugs pushed out of their holes, you should assume the block, head, radiator, heater core, and some other small parts are shot. If that turns out not to be true down the road, celebrate. Another thing that can happen with a Buick Eight, some of them anyway, is that the rear drain plug on the side of the block is not low enough to get all the water out. Even if the owner pulled the plug, if the coolant was pure water there can be enough left in there to break the block. Look especially close around the water jacket at the back of the engine, just below the level of the plug. Blocks can crack from overheating, or just from fatigue or casting defects. These cracks are less likely to be somewhere you can see. The truth is you probably wouldn't discover them until you had overheating or water in the oil or something. You may have to just gamble on that part. Word to the wise: It's never ONE crack. I'll bet Dave Tachney could find you an engine for that if you need one.

A lot more of it got done than gets done today. Gas stations with grease bays were in every town, and by the late 20s on almost every corner. I think it was expected by those owners who did their own maintenance that there would be some stuff to do every Saturday. People also drove less, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds. Hitting all those points should be the first thing you do on any old car you acquire and intend to drive anywhere. It takes more time than you would expect.

Wow. That doesn't sound good. I hope Bob is OK. KornKurt here on the forum is always my first stop for old Pontiac mechanical stuff like this. If that doesn't get you anywhere, have you considered having yours rebuilt/resurfaced? It might be problematic because there are some special fixtures needed to set up the pressure plate if its been disassembled or it's adjustments touched. I have seen rebuilt pressure plates on ebay in recent times, no idea of the quality. I would prefer to get the original resurfaced if possible. I just had mine apart and it didn't need it. The piece the throwout bearing rides on is replaceable, and you do see those NOS/NORS on ebay from time to time. The throwout bearing is carbon. The Filling Station rebuilds those for Chevrolets. https://store.fillingstation.com/shop/ The Pontiac one looks suspiciously similar, and I suspect it is a mirror image of the Chevrolet, and if you tried to use a Chevrolet bearing the oil cup would be upside down. I would check with them and see if they can rebuild a Pontiac bearing. Probably. Do you need one though? They have slots in the carbon for wear indicators. If it's still got slots, oil the cup and go. Maybe if it is completely dried out, soak it in hot motor oil for a while and then wipe it off real good. Clutch discs can be relined. I took a Buick one to Brake and Clutch of Seattle, WA. Much to my surprise I had it back the same day. Brake and Equipment of Minneapolis, MN is another good place to check for stuff like this. I might ask either of these places about pressure plate resurfacing while I was at it. If you have it relined, read what the manual says in the specs table, and then take a tape measure to the lining so you understand what is going on. Also measure the pressure plate face. That lining needs to be SLIGHTLY LESS than the 2 inches it looks like it should be. My disc has a 2 inch lining on it, and was starting to grow a ridge. That really shouldn't be. A ridge can promote chattering. https://brakeandclutchsupply.com/ https://brakeandequipment.com/machine-shop/ The pilot bearing is a Hyatt roller bearing, and there is a shield over it you have to pull. I had to buy an expanding puller to get it out, but the good news is that shield thing is thick and it is possible to get it out without destroying it, even though it is a bit of a pain. If you need either of those parts, and Kurt or California Pontiac, or the usual suspects in the ETC newsletter don't have them, you'll probably have to lurk ebay. I have seen them on ebay occasionally. Mine were still good. Maybe yours will be too.

Why do those red holes exist? Wouldn't they negate any advantage of having the bowl vents inside the air cleaner?

The Jaguar would be wonderful, probably even a better experience than a T. That is a great route in a sportscar. I have done it in a Miata twice. Also don't forget the "lost coast". It's almost all paved. The roads leasing in and out are reminiscent of prewar mountain passes.

Thanks! I didn't know whether it was difficult or not, just that it wasn't obvious, and you cant reach half the stuff I see removed from your car with the radiator in. I'd like to get my radiator out and put a water tube in the engine. The manual would have you removing the whole nose for almost anything, and that does look fairly easy, but having just repaired the headlight wiring I wasn't thrilled with the idea of pulling the headlight wiring out.

That doesn't come up too often, and I would also like to know the answer. There is a lot of confusion due to the fact that some hypoid oils attack brass/bronze bushings, a completely separate issue. Also due to the fact that by the time 600W started getting replaced with SAE 160, synchromesh had also arrived. What a synchromesh transmission wants and what a sliding gear transmission wants are totally different, but both probably used 600W prior to the mid 30s. What I have heard is that a sliding gear transmission wants long hydrocarbon chains, to protect the tips of the gears as they contact each other when shifting. I can't back that up. I hope someone in here knows more.

It looks like your radiator is out of the car, as well as the grille center removed. Did you accomplish that without taking the nose off of the car? If so, do you have any comments on how it was done?

I'm not crazy about the color, but these are brilliant cars. I had a one. Mine was a "Firedome Special", a cheaper model than the one this thread is about. It was pink and white. I hated the color. The biggest visual difference between a Fireflite Sportsman and a Firedome Special is the trim on the c pillar. @Xander Wildeisen had a 3 tone blue one he posted in another thread that was just plain gorgeous. Judging from the c pillar, it was a Firedome Special. I'd love to have another one of these someday.

I once read a comment from one of the engineers of the Bendix Electrojector, the first electronic fuel injection, who said that (heavily paraphrased) "it worked great, but we had invented something that cost $800 and worked about as well as a $20 carburetor". I have a couple of old automotive engineering texts from the 40s, one of them is from 1941. I can tell you that what was going on both chemically and physically with that little flame in the cylinder was already well understood. Many of the ideas being implemented in electronic engine controls the 1980s and early 90s were just answers to limitations well understood in 1941. They already knew what needed to be done. Interestingly, one thing that was NOT clear at that time, or in 1948 when the other book was published, was any advantage of overhead valves for ordinary road cars. Companies like Chevrolet and Buick had been touting the advantage of overhead valves since their beginnings, and so were sort of stuck with them. For one thing, you have to oil the rocker arms. If I'm not mistaken, Buick had you manually oiling them well into the 20s, while a lot of their L-headed competition hadn't had a similar requirement since the teens if ever. You could pressure feed them, but with the oils of the day the lines would probably plug up. Also you have to have pushrods and probably run the valve clearance pretty wide due to the heat expansion of all the parts. All that makes noise, and at the time "smooth" and "you can't even hear it running" were huge selling points. Overhead valves are not quiet. It's much easier to make a flathead quiet. The cam is very close to the valve stem, and the valve clearance can be pretty small. Meanwhile, someone, I think it was Pierce, invented hydraulic lifters, and Buick jumped on the hydraulic lifter bandwagon very soon after. No surprise. Buick's competition was primarily if not entirely flathead. It wasn't until the horsepower race heated up that Chevrolet and Buick were vindicated. There is a limit to how high the compression in a flathead can go, and not for the reasons you might think. You get to a point where if you increase the compression any more, you restrict the breathing enough that horsepower goes down. It probably varies with the engine design, but I think it's fair to say most of the 30s designs are stuck at about 6.5-1 or less. Maybe 7.0-1 if you are lucky. This was a non-issue with 1940s gas. When the horsepower was about to heat up in the 50s, there was gas available with more lead in it. Compression wasn't limited by the fuel nearly as much, and the breathing of overhead valve engines is not limited by compression. Suddenly everyone needed an overhead valve engine.

I suspect the first practical gas analyzers are the Hamiltons of the late 1970s. By practical I mean having at least 4 gasses. Do any still exist? I haven't seen one in several decades, and it is literally an Internet black hole, the only references seem to be passing mentions in old EPA documents. It would be kind of a hoot to own one now, but those, like all other old gas analyzers, are temperamental beasts with showstopping "gotchas" located at every turn. Various kinds of gas analyzers and mixture meters go back to at least the 40s (I had an Allen from that era), and probably earlier. It measured one gas. There were scopes floating around in the late 60s that had a gas analyzer measuring two. Using anything less than 4 gasses for tuning is in my opinion a waste of time. Two gas machines (HC, CO) work great if the car is running perfectly. But, if the car were running perfectly would you be working on it? Maybe for an emissions check or something. As a troubleshooting tool a 2 gas analyzer is useless. As a troubleshooting tool, you need a 4 gas analyzer, measuring HC, CO, CO2, and O2. Or if you like, a 5 gas analyzer, which adds NOx. NOx has become a common addition since some states started regulating it and testing for it.

The viscosity numbers are confusing, but here are some basic things to keep in mind. SAE viscosity numbers are ranges. As an example the SAE 30 motor oil rating we are all familiar with could have some heavier and some lighter oil sold under "SAE 30" as long as they all fell in a certain range. It is not specific about viscosity, except to tell you it will not be outside the range. SAE numbers with a "W" after are different. Some say the W means winter, and I am not sure that's true, but it does for sure mean colder. SAE grades with a W after them mean the testing was done at a colder temperature. SInce oil gets thinner when it gets hotter, this matters. It is the reason something like 20W-20 motor oil could exist, and that was a multiviscosity oil! Plain 20W (note the W) would have got thinner as it got hotter, and probably would have not fallen in the range for SAE 20. SAE gear oils are rated on a different scale than motor oils. The SAE 90 gear oil rating we are all familiar with is roughly the same viscosity as SAE 50 motor oil. A "W" in a gear oil rating means the same thing as it does in motor oil, that being that the testing was done at a lower temperature. Lower temperature often results in higher viscosity. 600W is steam cylinder oil, and it is completely unrelated to any of this. I also suspect it was not petroleum oil originally, but I'm less sure of that. The replacement for 600W in automotive gear oil applications (and that was petroleum for sure) was SAE 160. The SAE 160 standard has been deprecated and I have not been able to find any solid information about what viscosity range it covered. It seems likely to have covered much of the same territory as SAE 250 today, not SAE 140 as is commonly assumed. I can't prove it, so take that with a grain of salt. ISO ratings, unlike SAE ratings, refer to a specific viscosity. They do not have a "W" or even a "weight", although you will see gear oils in the automotive world advertised that way. The "1600W" mentioned earlier in the thread is probably really ISO 1500 if the seller were to produce a datasheet. Meanwhile, many modern 600W substitutes for model A Fords often have an ISO rating of 680. That is a coincidence. 600W is a trademark owned by Mobil, not a viscosity rating. Mobil does not publish an ISO or SAE viscosity rating for current production "600W", but the kinematic viscosities they publish suggest ISO 460. They do publish an ISO rating for their "600W Super" oil. It is ISO 460. Here is a handy chart. Lay a ruler across it and go to town. This, along with the information posted by others earlier in the thread, should show why SAE 250 and ISO 1500 and ISO 680 and various mislabeled "W" and "weight" oils sold by hobby sources can all be about the same viscosity. You'll have to guess about 600W since it didn't refer to viscosity, and god only knows what viscosity it was in the 20s. It was reputed to be extremely thick and gloppy so it probably makes sense that a replacement should be thicker than Mobil's current ISO 460-ish 600W. There have already been oils posted in this thread that are known to work.

The name changed from "600" to "Statesman" for 1950, so if this fits 1949-50, it has to be 1949.

600W is not the weight. It probably meant the flash point in Fahrenheit originally.

Most cars of that era don't have enough headroom in the current output of the charging system to carry one extra light let alone two. Once you exceed the output of the generator, everything gets dim really quick.

Well, as a retired mechanic who has used all of the things mentioned so far, I'll say this. For professional automotive service, four post lifts are all but useless. They are just too in the way. There are exceptions, for instance a dedicated wheel alignment hoist, where they can be a good thing. Also, if all you work on is prewar, you might be able to get away with a four post, because almost everything important is in the center of the car. On the other hand if you are going to work on more modern cars, like mid 50s or newer, don't sell your jackstands. If you go four post, you'll use them almost as much as you did before. That goes double if any of the cars you work on are front wheel drive. There is no way I would have ever signed on at a shop if I was going to be stuck on a four post hoist. Two post hoists are more useful than anything else, especially 2 post hoists that have the posts offset toward the front. There are some jobs you cannot do on a 2-post, but those jobs are a small minority. If I was buying hoists, and had room for only one, an offset 2 post would be the winner hands down. Someone will no doubt point out that you have to get down on your knees about 4 times to set the hoist. That's true. My knees hurt and I don't want to do it. It doesn't change anything. It still beats jack stands. You do need ceiling clearance. As others suggested I would work on that first.

Well to be fair, it does look almost exactly like Peugeot's dancing lion.

In 1933, there were taxicabs called "General" (not GMC), though I believe they were built by GMC as Yellow Coach and Yellow Cab had apparently been rolled into GMC around that time. They were NOT Chevrolets. They look like Pontiacs, but they aren't that either. Two remain. One restored and one rusty shell. The owner of the restored one has posted here. Did they continue to make "General" cabs through the 1936 era? This is the first I have heard of the unmarked (or GMC marked) Chevrolet cars. It would be a hoot to own one. Do any remain? Back to the clock, if it is a Chevrolet part, and you post it on https://vccachat.org/ , it is almost a given someone will know.

I think they just dropped the "e". From the current company history page of Tripp-Lite: 1920s, '30s & '40s: A Bright Idea Tripp Lite has its bright beginning in 1922. In 1922, Graham Trippe, a Chicago-area inventor, obtains a patent for a new precision-focused automobile headlight. Trippe's headlight design wins the gold medal at the Paris Exposition of Innovation in 1928 and 1929. The Trippe "Speed Light" becomes a successful automotive accessory, improving visibility on all types of vehicles, including fine touring cars and U.S. Army tanks during World War II.

Accurate ID needs a closer view but I'd say those are Unity, not Trippe.

For the record, and for people who may read this in the future, even when we KNOW what position #1 is supposed to be in, on many engines it is possible change it (get it wrong) if the piece with the distributor drive gear on it is removed from the engine. That could be the distributor itself, or the oil pump depending on make and model. Sometimes people over the years have screwed it up during an overhaul, not realizing it is only supposed to go one way, and find it easier to move the wires around than take the oil pump back off. There is no guarantee that #1 is still where the auto manufacturer put it. That is why it is always best to check the way @Peter R. suggested. Then you know.

The 55er nailed it. Missing parts? Sort of. I can see in the picture you have the two 12v6 tubes present. You have empty sockets for the vibrator and the 0z4 tube. The 12v6s are the power output section of the audio amplifier, and the 0z4 and the vibrator are for a power supply that makes the higher voltages needed to operate all the vacuum tubes. The white and red tag also shows the tube layout of a radio chassis using 12ba6, 12be6, 12bf6, and 12au6 tubes. No sign of the radio chassis here other than that tag.

Maybe a TV lamp?

Despite the claims of half the makers of snake oil down at the auto parts store, I don't believe you can seal combustion with any sort of goo, nor do I believe that if you could, you could do it from the water side. The pressure of combustion is extremely high. The only options I know of are welding/brazing or metal stitching. I gather metal stitching is preferred these days. Your mileage may vary.